The Next National Survey of Jewish Americans

• In Event: Three Perspectives on Antisemitism

Abstract

National surveys include multiple questions on attitudes of Jewish American respondents to events and situations in Israel. The surveys also include questions about occurrence and perception of antisemitic
incidents in the US.

I will be looking primarily at the Pew Survey "Jewish Americans in 2020", whose observations were made four years prior to the current wartime environment. Should the datasets be made available, I will also look at national surveys taken since October 7, 2023.

The initial sets of graphs and tables will be constructed to show the distribution of responses to the questions, as classified by one or more of the factors: Type, Denomination, Engagement, Race-Ancestry-Culture, Ethnic Group, Age Group--and perhaps others.

Looking at graphs of three-way classifications of distributions reveals unanticipated relationships among the classification factors, overall and in the settings of specific questions. For example, in Pew2020, prediction of "Attachment to Israel" by Type depends on Engagement, but the reverse prediction of "Attachment to Israel" by Engagement does NOT depend on Type.

A consequence of the current wartime situation is the recognition that there is frequently conflation of several distinct concepts: antisemitism, anti-Jewish sentiment, anti-Israeli sentiment, anti-Zionist sentiment.
How can we construct survey questions for the next national survey that will enable us to distinguish these very different concepts?

Author

• Richard Heiberger, Temple University